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ADDRESS 



IRo^al Ibistorical Society, 



FEBRUARY 18th, 1892, 



THE RIGHT HONBLE. 



SIR MOUNTSTUART E, ^RANT DUFF, G.C.S.I., 



PRESIDENT. 






KlNGSTON-ON-THAMES : 

Printed by W. Drewett, 37, Market Place, and Ceres Road. 



M 



Gtentlemen, 

When you were good enough to elect me last year 
to the post which gives me the privilege of addressing you on 
this occasion, the honour came rather unexpectedly, and I 
thought I did not know enough about the circumstances, pros- 
pects, and possibilities of the Society to make it wise for me to' 
speak to you at any length before I had had a year's experience 
of its working. I have now had this, and that is the reason 
why I have ventured to ask you to meet me this afternoon. 

The Koyal Historical Society had the advantage of com- 
mencing its work under the nominal guidance of two very 
eminent Presidents : Mr. Grote was a great historian, while 
Lord Kussell was a not inconsiderable maker of history. 
When, however, they became connected with us they were 
both very old men, their work was done ; and it would not have 
been reasonable to expect from them much more than the 
sanction of their great names. It was not till the days of 
their successor — Lord Aberdare — that the President took an 
active part in the direction of our affairs. When he came to 
the rescue, he was not young, and might fairly have considered 
that he had earned repose ; but no man among his contem- 
poraries has been less sparing of himself or more zealous in the 
discharge of every duty which he could with any sort of reason 
be asked to undertake. A poet, who spoke with full knowledge, 
said of him some time ago — 

What shall be written to the man 
Who through life's mingled hopes and fears 
Attains to-day our little span 
Of seventy years ? 

What else but this ? Brave heart be strong. 
Be of good hope — life holds no fears, 
Nor death, for him who strives with wrong 
For seventy years. 

Live, labour, spread that sacred light 
Of knowledge which thy soul reveres, 
Fight still the old victorious fight 
Of seventy years. 

Many lustra spent in high and varied office and in both 
branches of the legislature had left, as they leave him, full of 
interest in those great subjects which are the very eyes of 



politics — Geography, and its sister History, which brings 
us together in this hall. He would, I am sure, agree with 
me in thinking that the writer of the preface to the English 
Historical Revieiv did not at all overstate his case when he 
said that he believed that history, " in an even greater degree 
" than its votaries had generally recognized, is the central study 
" among human studies capable of illuminating and enriching 
" all the rest." 

If this be true, it becomes a matter of first rate impor- 
tance to consider what ought to be its place in education, and 
this Society can be hardly better occupied for an hour than in 
attempting to arrive at an answer to that question. In order 
to give to it anything like a satisfactory answer, we must first 
know precisely what we mean by History, and what by Education. 

I understand by History, in the sense in which I am at 
present using that term, the record of those events which have 
been chiefly instrumental in creating the state of affairs with 
which we are now dealing on this planet, in so far as they have 
been brought about by human agency ; together with the record 
of such other facts as, although their consequences may not be 
traceable in the state of affairs into which we have been born, 
are nevertheless such as wise men will be unwilling not to 
know. 

The first of these records has to do with History chiefly in 
its scientific, the second chiefly in its literary aspect. Having 
regard to this distinction, we may say that our first object in 
teaching History should be to explain the present, and to put 
the learner in possession of facts which may guide him in 
forming his opinions as to the changes which changing circum- 
stances'may require in a world where nothing continueth in 
one stay ; while our second object should be to store his mind 
with images, sayings, and examples which may be full-welling 
fountain-heads of right sympathies, of pure affections, and of 
all nobleness. 

By Education again, in the sense in which I am at 
present using the term, I understand the process by which we 
endeavour to enable men or women to make the most of the 
faculties that have been given them, due regard being had to 
the positions which they occupy in the social scale, or are 
reasonably likelv to attain to. It follows from this definition 
of education that there must be a great many varieties of it, 
and that the amount of History which it may be desirable for 
the educator to impart to different individuals may be expected 
to vary not a little. To prevent confusion, however, I shall 



speak almost exclusively of the amount and kind of Histoiy 
which it is desirable to teach to the average man who proposes 
to carry on his education up to the age at which it is usual to 
take the degree of Bachelor of Arts in an English University, 
and who aims at occupying with credit a good place in Society. 
I do not mean to speak of persons who desire to devote them- 
selves to History, either as writers, lecturers or professed 
students, nor shall I say anything of those who are training 
especially for statesmanship or diplomacy, though it was for 
them that the first Modern History School at Oxford was 
founded in the days of George the First. I know no reason 
why the historical training given to women who wish to be 
well educated should differ in any respect from that given to 
men of the same age. 

We all know that the faculties which first develope are 
usually the observing faculties, and that the only reasonable 
systems of education are those which take advantage of that 
law of human nature, by gratifying and stimulating the 
curiosity of the pupil, until a very fair knowledge has been 
obtained of what, for want of a better name, are called 
" common things," a knowledge which involves the acquisition 
of no small number of scientific facts. Side by side with the 
desire to know about our immediate surroundings a taste for 
poetry is often awakened, and use should be made of both these 
tendencies in preparing the mind for historical studies. The 
second leads directly to History, though by a postern door ; the 
first to her twin sister, Geography. 

Surely one of the first things which any tolerably rational 
creature has got to do is to answer the question " Where am I ?" 

We might take a lesson from one of the commonest of our 
domestic animals. Bring a cat into a drawing-room, and what 
does she proceed to do ? Why, to examine every article of 
furniture, and come to some conclusion or other, enlightened 
or unenlightened, about it. Carry some new article into a 
room with which she is acquainted, and she will not rest until 
she has examined and settled her views about it. So with 
tribes which have made but little progress in civilization. I 
have found myself among people who were still on the lowest 
steps of the ladder of learning, who could not count above 
twenty, but who had a minute acquaintance with the trees and 
shrubs and animals of their jungles. The hideous process 
which we describe as a good education too often kills that 
greatest intellectual possession — "la grande curiosite." Far 
from doing so, we should take advantage of the natural instinct 



of curiosity, stimulate children to know all about their own 
neighbourhood, and then pass on from that to the county, the 
district, the country and so to Universal Geography. They 
would not, however, have gone very far in geographical studies 
before they began to ask questions which could only be 
answered by an appeal to History, and these two studies, 
throwing floods of light each upon the other, should be made 
the staple of all secondary education in this country, in so far as 
it is not directed chiefly towards Physics, Chemistry or 
Mathematics, which for obvious reasons it must often be. 

Much ink has been expended on the controversy whether 
History should be looked upon as a branch of science or 
as a branch of literature. It is the old story of the shield 
with two sides : if we look at History from one point of view it 
appears as a succession of problems ; if we look at it from 
another, it appears a pageant, a succession of pictures — 
sometimes sad, sometimes brilliant. It is, however, from the 
side on which it looks like a succession of pictures that general 
History is approached with most advantage. 

To penetrate into that kingdom the child must usually 
take a great passport of poetry, although the History of his own 
country may be very well approached from the mechanism of 
the parish, the county, the town, or the electoral sub-division. 
However he may approach History, whether by the gate of 
poetry or geography, and with whatever portion of the lealm 
which he enters he may chiefly occupy himself, is all one to us. 

The Royal Historical Society claims for its domain every 
thing that men have done. No exposition of facts can be too 
picturesque for us, provided always the facts have occurred ; 
that th^y are, in other words, pearls, not mock pearls of History. 
On the other hand no disquisitions on the philosophy or science 
of History can be too abstruse, provided always they have a 
real basis, and are not, as is far, far too often the case, airy 
nothings spun out of some busy brain. What can be more 
natural than that men who have seen the immense advance 
which the researches of Mr. Darwin have brought about in our 
knowledge of the material world should imagine that in the 
theory of Evolution they have a magic wand which, when they 
touch with it the accumulated facts of History, may enable 
them to turn that accumulation into a science ? Perhaps it is so, 
but I am afraid we are still in the same difficulty which the 
German poet foresaw with reference to the Philosopher's Stone. 
Evolution may be the wand of the magician, but the magician 
is wanting to the wand. Before biology began to attract so 



much attention, some writers borrowed for the use of the 
science of Historj' a different set of phrases from other branches 
of human knowledge, and Mr. Mill wrote of Social Statics and 
Social Dynamics. All such phrases, however, although they 
have the authority of great names, seem to me only to darken 
counsel by leading students of History to expect a great deal 
more than they will obtain. Heaven knows, they will obtain 
enough without cherishing false hopes ! 

I say, then, weave into History as much philosophy as you 
please, and as much poetry as you please, provided always you 
do not torture facts to suit your immediate purpose. Wisely 
did my predecessor insist on the importance of keeping the 
work of this Society catholic. Not long ago one of our number 
proposed that we should make it our principal object to discuss 
what he described as " Historical Origins," rather than the 
details of comparatively minor historical events. I say let us 
have both. He desired, amongst other things, that we 
should discuss the origins of Egyptian, Chaldean, and Chinese 
civilization, besides ten other similar subjects. By all means! 
I suppose we should welcome with enthusiasm really good 
papers on all the subjects which he enumerated, including the 
pre-Aryan civilization of India, a most uncommonly hard nut to 
crack. I am sure I hope before the obituary notice of the 
Historical Society comes to be written that we shall have had 
papers on every one of Mr. Glennie's suggested subjects, and 
that we shall not be deterred from receiving them with respect by 
the natural criticism that our proper sphere is the historic not 
thepre-historic. Another high authority — Mr. Herbert Spencer — 
declares that the only kind of History which is of any use is 
Descriptive Sociology. This view appears to me not as in- 
adequate as the one I have just been discussing, bat extremely 
inadequate. Far be it from me to deny that historians have 
till recently given us too little of the information which 
Mr. Spencer chiefly affects, and that a great deal too much 
importance has been attached by readers of History to facts 
which, if not unimportant, are important almost exclusively 
to specialists, such as the strategy which led to victory or 
defeat in a particular campaign, or the tactics which won or 
lost for this or that commander a particular battle. Still, 
Descriptive Sociology would be but a chaos to those who did 
not acquire what I am insisting on, a knowledge, that is, of 
the broad facts of human history, the kind of knowledge which 
is necessary if the annals of our race are to be to us anything 
better than 

A mighty maze and all without a plan. 



The truth is, that everything which can throw new light 
on the biography of nations, or on the lives of individuals who 
have been directly or indirectly potent in influencing the fate 
of nations, belongs to our sphere of action, though it is indis- 
putable that some facts are immensely more important than 
others, and that some departments of History- — all that relates 
to Industrial and Economic change for example — have been 
unduly neglected. The first merit of the historian, as of the 
statesman, is aptness to be right, and that is the most 
useful history which brings the most important things into the 
boldest relief and stamps them deepest on the memory. 

To return, however, to the pupil who is approaching the 
study of History. We must presume that the inevitable pre- 
liminaries of all education have been got over, that he can 
really read, not according to the contemptible standard with 
which, in this age of chatter about popular education, people 
are too often satisfied, but that he can read aloud sufficiently 
well to be listened to by an educated person without disgust ; 
that he can write, slowly of course at first, a hand which will 
become a clear one ; that he knows those few and simple rules 
of Arithmetic which he is likely to have to employ under the 
ordinary circumstances of life ; and that he has that sort of 
glimpse into the sciences of observation, or some of them, 
which must inevitably result from an intelligent acquaintance 
with the objects which immediately surround him. 

It would be desirable that to these supremely necessary 
acquirements should be added some acquaintance with one or 
mi.re foreign languages, gained not only through the eye but 
through the ear, but the possibility of giving that must 
naturally depend on circumstances. 

This foundation having been laid, and previous acquisi- 
tions being perpetually revised, the next few years should be 
given by those who can carry on their education to one or two 
and twenty, chiefly, but by no means exclusively, to Geography 
and History. Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his famous inaugm-al 
address at St. Andrew's, puts forward a very diiferent view. 
He says : — 

"Who ever really learnt History and Geography except by 
" private reading ? And what an utter failure a system of 
" education must be if it has not given the pupil a sufficient 
" taste for reading to seek for himself those most attractive 
" and easily intelligible of all kinds of knowledge ? " 

And again : — 



" But of the mere facts of History, as commonly accepted, 
" what educated youth of any mental activity does not learn 
" as much as is necessary, if he is simply turned loose into an 
" historical library ? " 

The answer to this is, that unhappily we do not, at least 
in Great Britain, meet one educated youth in five hundred 
who is even tolerably acquainted with the mere facts of History 
as commonly accepted. Mr. Mill, as was too often the case, 
was generalizing hastily from his own idiosyncrasy, which, in 
spite of his splendid intellect, constantly led him wrong when, 
stepping out of the realm of abstractions, he found himself 
dealing with things concrete, and more especially with that 
very curious animal— man. It was this peculiarity which 
made him so odd, and even pathetic a figure in the House 
of Commons, although he had done so much to teach the 
teachers and had been one of the seminal minds of his own 
generation, as he himself said that Coleridge and Bentham 
had been of theirs. Mr. Mill fancied that History was a much 
easier study than most people find it. Others make the 
opposite mistake of over-rating its difficulty. They say, 
" What! are you going to plunge children into the labyrinth 
of ten thousand controversies ? " Not at all ! 

Comte, quoted by his disciple Mr. Cotter Morrison, says 
very truly " That the most important facts of History are the 
" least dependent on being minutely verified for their true 
"appreciation." It is these facts, and these only, which 
I desire to get in the first instance into the brains of youth. 
I want boys, and girls too for that matter — in the happy phrase 
of a Cierman professor, quoted in an admirable paper read to 
us by our friend Mr. Browning, to which I shall have to refer 
again — " to know their centuries ; " to know, that is, the great 
epoch-making facts of General History, and have a somewhat 
fuller, but still very outline, knowledge of the history of their 
own country. This should certainly be accomplished by the 
age of 14. 

There is no difficulty in finding sufficiently good books for 
the English part of the business, indeed there are so many 
that I will not attempt to choose amongst them ; but there is 
great difiiculty in pointing to any brief and simple work on the 
general history of the world to be got up thoroughly before 14. 
It seems to me, indeed, that our Society might do a good deal 
worse than offer a prize for such a book. As things now are, 
the English teacher who desired that his pupils should " know 
their centuries," would have to base his teaching upon works 



10 

intended for a later age. But it may be asked, " How is room 
" to be found to enable us to devote the lion's share of school or 
" school-room time to History and Geography ? " Simply, I 
answer, by considering what knowledge is most worth, by 
postponing the less important to the more important, and by 
taking things in their natural order. Up to 14 no difficulty 
should arise. All I should demand of any fairly clever boy or 
girl at that age (I am speaking, of course, neither of geniuses 
nor of idiots) would be : — 

(1) That he or she should read English aloud clearly and 
agreeably. 

(2) Should write a large distinct round-hand. 

(3) Should be thoroughly expert in the most ordinary 
rules of Arithmetic, especially compound addition. 

(4) Should be trained from earhest infancy to use his or 
her powers of observation. 

(5) Should have gathered some little acquaintance with 
what is most valuable in such portions of the English Classics 
as are suitable to early life — a very small fraction of them I 
need hardly say ; but the sooner the habit of reading the best 
books can be formed, the better. 

(6) Should be able to translate, ad apertm-am lihrl, from 
a simple French or Grermau book. When circumstances are 
favourable I should like young people at 14 also to speak, at 
least. French fluently. 

(7) Should know enough of drawing for purely practical, not 
artistic, purposes, and enough if possible of music to increase 
their enjoyment of it. 

(8) Should have a sufficient knowledge of English Com- 
position to be able to write a decently clear and grammatical 
account of anything they may have seen. 

Every one of these accomplishments can be acquired by the 
age of 14, without making it in the slightest degree difficult to 
give the lion's share of time for the last three or four years to 
laying the foundation of a knowledge of History and Geo- 
graphy, that is to say, of the theatre in which man has acted 
and of the drama which he has performed. 

It would be idle, and indeed absurd, to ask for any large 
knowledge of either History or Geography — at this time of life. 
If some good school Geography, say Chisholm's junior one, or 
any other, some good skeleton History of the World, and some 
small History of England, had been thoroughly mastered, it 



11 



would be quite enough. I consider that under no circum- 
stances whatever should any attempt be made to commence 
either Latin or Greek until 14, though wherever English is 
decently taught, that is wherever all derivations are 
carefully mastered, a great number of Latin and Greek 
words will have been learned incidentally before the age of 14. 
Mathematics, too, should be utterly banished from education 
before that age, unless in those exceptional cases where great 
mathematical ability can be divined, as it often can early. 
The possession of special and extraordinary gifts takes their 
possessors quite out of the category of those about whom I am 
speaking. 

At 14 I think that boys who wish to have every edaca- 
tional advantage should, unless they have a pronounced turn 
for Science and no strong turn for Literature, begin the ancient 
languages, and should continue to study them until they have 
read whatever is supremely best both in Greek and Latin. In 
order, however, that they may do this without sacrificing even 
more important things, care must be taken first to banish from 
classical teaching, where the object is to make men of the 
world and not specialists, everything that is not absolutely 
necessary ; secondly, to teach the ancient languages in the 
closest connection with their history. 

In order to comply with the first of these conditions, 
all attempts to write in the ancient languages must be 
peremptorily discarded, but Greek should be taught as 
what it is, a spoken language. Nothing must be read in 
the originals but what is not only admirable but so admir- 
able that no one can be said to be educated, up to the 
highest standard of his time, who has not read it. By a 
man educated up to the highest standard of his time I 
mean one who has a general notion, correct as far as it 
goes, of the material and moral world by which he is sur- 
rounded, who knows more or less how it came to be what 
it is, and who is acquainted with the very best things that 
man has said or sung. 

It is only, however, a minority of young people before 
whom it is reasonable to put so high a standard as this. 
A great many have no turn for Literature at all ; then 
why, in the name of folly, torture them with Latin or 
Greek, or with any other language which is not likely to 
be actually and directly useful to them in their passage 
through life "? It seems to me that the learning of Latin 



12 

and Greek is a luxui'}' which should be kept for those who 
materially and mentally are able to afford luxuries. 

The idea that there is any special discipline for the 
mind to be got out of the study of the Classics is mere 
nonsense, a cleverism invented by some esprit faux, and 
then circulated by puzzle-headed or interested persons to 
give a false air of utility to a system which can be explained 
and fully excused as a legacy from the past, but which, 
like some other legacies from the past, has only historical 
right on its side — not right reason. There are two all- 
sufficient reasons for teaching the Classics, without pressing 
bad ones into the service. In the first place they enshrine 
a good deal of the best which man has said or sung ; in 
the second place, without a considerable acquaintance with 
them a great deal of the moral world surrounding us is 
very imperfectly inteUigible. 

I used a few minutes ago the phrase " supremely best." 

There is a good deal of superstition, and of what a divine once 

called " behef in believing," in the common estimate of the 

Classics. It is high time that some great scholar, who has a 

wide knowledge of modern Literature and is also a man of the 

world, should take the trouble to tell our youth what they must 

read in the original, what they may read in translations, and 

what they need not read at all, due account being taken of 

the ever increasing amount of good literature and the wise 

words of Armstrong : — 

Faith I am not clear, 
For all the smooth round type of Elzevir, 
That every work which lasts in prose or song- 
Two thousand years deserves to last so long. 

Bifurcation should take place at 14, when those who show 
a strong literary turn and are able to afford a long education, 
should, as I have said, begin the two ancient languages, while 
others who propose to go into the Army, or any of the 
innumerable callings for which Mathematics are indispensable, 
should give to them and other cognate sciences exactly the 
same amount of time which the others give to Greek and Latin; 
but in both divisions of our schools, from 14 to 18 a consider- 
able amount of attention should be given to History and 
Geography. For the citizens of a world-wide empire like this, 
it is simply ridiculous that they should not be equipped with a 
kind of knowledge which, while it is educative in the highest 
degree, supplies instruction without which it is impossible, as 
things now are, to order wisely either our public or our private 
affairs. 



13 

The old-fashioned Geography, which consisted of little 
more than hsts of places and names, is, if not dead, yet 
certainly dying. The newer manuals of Geography are becoming 
manuals of earth-knowledge, closely connected with Physical 
Science on the one hand and with History on the other, worthy 
in fact of the impetus given by Carl Ritter to this branch of 
knowledge. No school intended for the upper or middle 
classes should be without one or more teachers of Geography, 
and one or more teachers of History, Mccording to the number 
of their scholars. In neither subject can we afford to do 
without the services of a thoroughly competent living teacher, 
but care should be taken not to demand too much. As to 
Geography, I should be perfectly satisfied, if, on leaving school, 
say between 18 and 19, the average of yountr people had 
followed a good course of lectures and could pass a reasonably 
stiff examination on a well compiled book of Physical and 
another of General Geography. I will mention two which 
seem to me very good and sufficient, though there may, 
for all I know, be others better. The first is an American 
book, " Eclectic Physical Geography," by Mr. Ptusseil 
Hinman, published by Sampson Low and Co.; the second is 
Chisholm's School Geography, published by Messrs. Longman. 
Both are beautifully illustrated and neither extends to 400 pages. 

I should like too to say just one word for Topography — so 
potent an aid to the remembering of great events. That 
leads me to History. As to the manner in which it should 
be taught in schools there is really nothing to add to 
the excellent paper, already referred to, which our distinguished 
colleague Mr. Browning read before the Society in 1887, and 
which is published in the Fourth Volume of our New Series. 
Mr. Browning dwells especially upon the great importance of 
lectures, of English essays written by the pupils on the sub- 
jects of the lectures, and on an ascending series of books to be 
placed in the pupil's hands — first, a skeleton book, secondly a 
text-hook, thirdly a hand-book. A good many of his remarks 
apply to those who show some special interest in or aptitude 
for history, rather than to those about whom I am chiefly 
thinking, in whose ranks, as T have said, are included all those 
who mean to carry on their education to the usual end of the 
University course, with the exception of persons who have 
absolutely no turn for history at all, and such there no doubt 
are : boys who have the same utter abhorrence of the subject 
as the late Dean of Westminster, a born historical student, if 
ever there was one, had of Mathematics. There is no more 



14 

foolish waste of time than to »o ou teaching, when you have 
once found out that the individual with whom you have to 
deal has not the faintest glimmer of interest in the subject which 
you attempt to teach him. And yet how constantly it is done ! 

The next question which arises is, to what History must 
the four or live years after the age of 1-i be chiefly given "? First, 
of course, there must be the general History of the world, read in 
a somewhat fuller compendium than that which will suffice for 
the wants of children under 14. To find such Histories in 
Germany would present no difficulty, but to find such a History 
in England is a very difierent afi"air. 

I really know of none published in this country ; but 
there is an American book which may conceivably have been 
suggested by Mr. Freeman's excellent " Sketch " and is quite 
sufficient for all practical purposes, b}' Dr. Fisher, a professor 
at Yale College, called " Outlines of Universal History,"" and 
published by Ivison & Co. Dr. Fisher says at the commence- 
ment of his preface : — 

" In writing this volume I have aimed to provide a text- 
."book suited to more advanced pupils. My idea of such a 
" work was, that it should present the essential facts of history 
" in due order and in conformity to the best and latest re- 
" searches ; that it should point out clearly the connexion of 
" events and of successive eras with one another ; that through 
"the interest awakened by the natural, unforced view gained 
" of this unity of History, and by such illustrative incidents as 
" ihe brevity of the narrative would allow to be wrought into 
" it, the dryness of a mere summary should be as far as 
" possible reliev'ed ; and that, finally, being a book intended for 
" pupils and readers of all classes, it should be free fi-om 
" sectarian partiality, and should limit itself to well-established 
"judgments and conclusions on all matters subject to party 
*' contention. Respecting one of the points just referred to, I 
" can say that, in composing this work, I have been myself 
" more than ever impressed with the unity of History, and 
"affected by this great and deeply moving drama that is still 
" advancing into a future that is hidden from view. I cannot 
" but hope that this feeling, spontaneous and vivid in my 
" own mind, may communicate itself to the reader in his 
" progress through these pages." 

This is a high aim, and in justice to Dr. Fisher I must 
say he has worked up to it. It is very curious and very far 
from creditable that we in Euaiand should be obliged to cross 



15 

the Atlantic to find a proper book to be used as a Manual of 
Universal History in our higher schools and colleges ; but the 
very idea of History being one long drama seems to be dead in 
this country. It will be a good piece of work done if this 
Society can recall it to life. 

At this stage of their training, students should have their 
attention very carefully directed to Biography, and, above all, 
to the lives of those great men who have been chiefly instru- 
mental in forwarding the onward march of humanity. I 
cannot point to any work which precisely meets all the re- 
quirements of the case. It must be short ; it must contain 
ample references to fuller accounts of the persons enumerated 
in it; it must not be arranged alphabetically, but according to 
the sequence of time and of the various phases of civilization 
dealt with ; and it must be as neutral in tint as possible. All 
these conditions, save the last, are very fairly fulfilled by the 
New Calendar of Great Men lately edited by Mr. Frederic 
Harrison. This is a capital book, which ought to be in the 
hands of all educated people who can make due allowance for 
wrong omissions and wrong admissions, but it is, in the nature 
of things, permeated by Comtist ideas, and its use in schools 
would naturally give rise to numerous complaints. A judicious 
master could and would, however, make use of it. It is not 
every boy who is inspired at 16 to read the Biographie Uni- 
verselle through, and to finish his task in a few weeks (a 
thing which once happened within my own knowledge), but a 
taste for Biography is apt to be early developed, and advantage 
of that circumstance should be freely taken to give increased 
life and colour to purely historical study. 

After the History of the world, and in some, though 
only in some, respects more important for English students, 
is the History of their own country, I suppose the best 
authorities would tell us that up to the end of the reign 
of Henry VII., it had better be read by young people over 14 
in the History of Mr. York Powell, and that after that 
period there are Dr. Bright's and other works to choose 
from ; any one of which might be sufficient for the purpose, 
Mr. Green's short History being read after the other two. 

Next to English History must come for all Western 
Europeans who wish to be thoroughly educated, the History of 
the three great races to which we owe our civilization, viz., 
the Greeks, the Israelites, and the Romans. From the first 
came Art, Science, Philosophy and Literature; from the 
second, Religion in all its higher forms, together with a great 



16 



deal of poetry ; from the third, a very large share of the in- 
fluences which we sum up in the words — Law and 
Administration. 

The teaching of these three great Histories should be in the 
hands of competent living teachers, whose duty, in dealing 
with boys on the Classical side, should be to work them in 
with that portion of Classical teaching which consists in the 
acquisition of the power to read Greek and Latin easily and 
rapidly. For the attainment of this end no pains should be 
spared, and every sort of help and appliance given, just as 
much, and only as much, grammar being acquired as is indis- 
pensable, care being +aken that the easiest writers should be 
attacked first, but at the same time that no line should 
be read which it would not be desirable for the pnpil to 
remember to his life's end. No inferior writer should ever be 
studied simply because he is easy, and the use of translations 
should not only be encouraged but enforced until they can be 
easily dispensed with. Greek should be treated as a language 
changing slowly and gradually from the Homeric period to our 
own, but still existing. The later Greek History and Litera- 
ture, however, should, except in the merest outline, be kept for 
the University. The Histories to which I suppose a good 
teacher of Greek in this country would chiefly direct the 
attention of his pupils would probably be Grote and Curtius, 
but it would be a great deal too much to expect boys on leaving 
school to pass an examination in either of these works. 
Enough would be done if they retained a good recollection of 
their teacher's lectures, and could pass a fair examination in 
soQ>e short Greek History, say Smith's Student's Greece. 
Mr. Oman's is, I suppose, the one most up to the 
latest lights, and it is to be hoped that its able author 
will soon add a second volume, taking care in the con- 
cluding chapters, however briefly, to bring down the history of 
Greece to our own days. A great deal is gained if we can once 
make young readers understand that the history of Greece is 
continuous, and it is quite possible to do this without indulging 
in any silly phil-Hellenic enthusiasm, or, on the other hand, 
speaking, as some one did, of a people which has a great 
many merits, as composed " of the same canaille asm the days 
of Themistocles." One cannot read the last page of Mr. 
Oman's book without seeing that he feels that the period of 
Greek History which begins with Alexander the Great is in 
many respects its most interesting portion. 



17 

Very significant is the anecdote which he tells of that 
most remarkable man saying, when he heard of some five 
thousand people having been killed in the Peloponnese : 
" While we have been conquering the Great King, there has 
" been, it seems, some battle of mice in Arcadia." 

The teaching of Jewish History would present some 
obvious difficulties ; but great progress has been made, and 
probably the time is not far off when it may be taught 
intelligently without fear of giving too much offence. A 
teacher who knew his business would have in his han;1s no 
lack of excellent guides in French, German, and even English, 
but I know not what text-book or hand-book to recommend. The 
Old Testament part of the excellent work called " The Bible for 
Young People "' is very lengthy, and is written as much for 
edification as for information ; while Mr. Robertson Smith's 
masterly paper on Israel, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is too 
short and too closely packed. By the time that it has become 
a truism that the laws governing all History are precisely the 
same, and that the methods which lead to truth in examining 
the annals of one ancient nation are likely to lead to it in 
examining those of another, the defect will no doubt have been 
supplied. 

In dealing with Roman History , the teacher who has to 
keep close to facts will have an easier task. No one, I believe, 
now thinks it necessary to die in the last ditch for Remus, 
Romulus and the she-wolf. Here, I suppose, the teacher 
would encourage his pupils to read many parts of Moramsen, 
Merivaie and Gibbon, while the text-book might perhaps be 
the General Roman History of the second of these authors. It 
is high time, however, that the results of recent researches in 
this field should be incorporated in a single volume. To find 
time for this moderate amount of Historical and Geographical 
study ere the eighteenth birthday is reached, while keeping 
up what I have already insisted on as necessary to be learned 
before fourteen, obtaining some notions of the laws of health, 
acquiring a good deal of any one Natural Science, and enough 
of several sciences to excite an interest in them, would be 
simple enough. Just think of the time that would be saved if 
the whole irrational system of Greek and Latin composition, 
and the hardly less irrational habit of learning reams of verse 
by heart, with the object of improving that same precious 
composition, were thrown behind the fire. Some portion of 
the time now wasted over rules of Arithmetic, which the 
people of whom I am thinking are never likely to have to 



18 

use in the whole course of their lives, might advantageously 
be given to acquiring a sufficient knowledge of book-keeping to 
enable them to understand the accounts submitted to them. 
Now-a-days, for all they learn at school, some of our large 
proprietors are in the position of a gentleman whom I knew in 
India. He had a nice compact little estate about the size of 
the county of Surrey, he spoke a language of Aryan origin, but 
his accounts were kept in a language of Dravidian origin, with 
which he had no acquaintance whatsoever. 

I have provided already for the case of those who have a 
strong turn for Mathematics and little turn for Literature. In 
the case of the others it will be quite enough that they should 
learn jnst enough Mathematics to know what mathematical 
reasoning means. For the ordinary purposes of life some 
simple treatise on Logic, say that of Jevons, would be much 
more useful. Greek and Latin cannot properly be learnt 
without endless translating from those languages into English, 
nor could History be s(M-iously studied without the writing of a 
great many essays. English composition is thus provided for, and 
I really do uni see what additional study need be insisted upon 
before the examination on leaving school, which ought to 
replace Matriculation. It should embrace all the subjects I 
have mentioned, and need, I think, embrace no others, but I 
should never dream of closing the University to persons who 
wished to go thei'e to devote themselves to any particular study, 
merely because they could not pass their leaving examination. 
All that would be reasonable for the University to do would be 
to require that such persons had a sufficient preliminary 
acquamtance with the subject they had selected to make the 
teaching they would receive within its walls likely to be 
valuable to them. It is impossible to give too much encour- 
agement, in the final stage of education, to varieties of aptitude. 

I pass now to History and Geography at the University, I 
do not know that the knowledge of actual facts to be required 
at the end of the course need be much greater, but both 
subjects should be studied in a larger and more philosophical 
way than is possible at school. Great authors, hitherto only 
known by extracts, should be sometimes wholly, sometimes 
only partially, but always more largely read ; more attention 
should be given to the history of human thought on 
philosophical and economical subjects, and every endeavour 
made to bring within the pupil's view the best that has been 
written on the subject under treatment. Exactly the same 
course should be taken with Greek and Latin, 



19 



At school much would be read in these tongues which is 
read now, though much would be omitted and some things 
added ; but at the University everything that is of first rate 
interest in either of them should be read — some attention being 
given even to the Latin of the Church, and the study of Greek 
continued right down to our own days, by the help of such a 
book as Mr. Geldart's and in connection with Finlay's His- 
tories. So it should be, mutatis mutandis, with French and 
German, and with every study which was not left behind 
amongst childish and school-day things. Everywhere History, 
General History, History considered as one great continuous 
broadening river, should be present and appealed to. 

Filled with this idea I turned to the Statute governing 
the Honour School of Modern History at Oxford, to see how 
far that great University upheld the principle for which I am 
contending. The first thing which occurred to me was that it 
seemed very unphilosophical, as well as practically incon- 
venient, to have a separate Honour School of Modern History 
at all. Why should Modern History be separated from 
Ancient History ? Is it possible to understand the first with- 
out an adequate knowledge of the other ; and what guarantee 
is taken before a man enters the Modern History School that 
he has an adequate knowledge of Ancient History ? Next I 
see that the examination in the School of Modern History is 
always to include : — 

(1) The continuous History of England. 

(2) General History during some period selected by the 
candidate from periods to be named from time to time by the 
Board of the Faculty. 

(3) A special portion of History or a spesial historical 
subject, cai-efully studied with reference to original authorities. 

Further, every candidate is required to have a knowledge 
of Political Economy, of Constitutional Law, and of Political 
and Descriptive Geography. 

When I turn to the regulations of the Board, I find that 
the examination in the History of England is to be on con- 
tinuous Constitutional History, continuous Political History to 
the beginning of the reign of the Queen, and on the History of 
any one of seven periods to be studied in detail. All that 
seems very good for those who are making a special subject of 
History, but it does not in the least meet the particular wants 
of those for whom I am pleading, that is to say, the great army 
of people who aspire to be well-educated before they scatter to 



20 

their work in life. Nor is the case in the least mended hy the 
arrangements with regard to the teaching of General History. 
These involve the study of an^ one of seven periods of History, 
viz. : from A.D. 476 to 1085, or from 936 to 1272, or from 
1272 to 1519, or from 1414 to 1610, or from 1610 to 1715, or 
from 1715 to 1815, or from 1763 to 1852 ; each period being 
studied in connection with a period of English History pretty 
nearly corresponding to it, and also to be studied in detail. 
All that is again very well, but it is too much to expect that 
the people of whom I am thinking should give themselves to 
this kind of study ; and if they did, it would not be half so 
useful to them as a much less detailed knowledge of General 
History. 

I know, of course, that the answer which the Board 
would give is, that they wish to discourage superficial know- 
ledge. In this tbey do i-ightly, but no person in his senses 
advocates superficial knowledge. What is wanted is a 
knowledge of the great landmarks of History from the 
beginning of time to our own day, perfectly accurate as far 
as it goes. When once this has been obtained, literature, 
travel, contemporaiy politics, the exigencies of public, com- 
mercial or other business, of Law and of the Church, indeed 
of every profession or calling, will be perpetually stimulating 
those who have a good outline knowledge of History to study 
more minutely various portions of it. That historical students, 
properly so called, should carefully study special subjects with 
reference to the original authorities is the most natural thing 
in the world ; that they should eventually devote themselves to 
particular periods is also as it should be. But ought they not, 
before they do this, to have an outline knowledge of all 
History ? And if not, why not? One result of this splitting of 
History into periods at the University is that the same course 
is adopted at schools, and we may any day hear a boy or girl 
in reply to some very simple question say, " Oh ! that is not 
in my period." Surely a system which encourages such 
absurdities is, if not a bad, at least an imperfect system. 

It is to be presumed that the Board of the Faculty of 
History at Ox|prd had some good reason for arranging their 
programme of studies as they have arranged it ; but admitting 
that it is so, ere a young man is permitted to present himself 
for Honours in the Modern History School would it not be 
desirable that he should pass an examination in the outlines 
of General History, and might not this examination be made 
subservient to the wants of those whose interests I am 
advocating ? 



21 



I do not know whether there are any tutors or lecturers 
now in Oxford who devote themselves to General History as a 
whole. If there are, I suppose their teaching must largely 
consist of calling the attention of their pupils to the parts of 
various writers which it seems most important to them should 
be read, and of taking care to find out by oral or written 
examinations, and by prescribing the writing of essays, that 
their recommendations are duly attended to. For those who 
have not the inestimable advantage of a living teacher, the 
book I have already mentioned — -Fisher's " Outlines " — would 
be very useful on account of its Bibliography ; so during 
the University period, though hardly sooner, would be 
another American book called " Institutes of History," by 
Dr. Andrews, of the Cornell University. It is written in 
Telegraphese, and a strange sort of Telegraphese, but it 
contains an excellent Bibliography and is full of pithy remarks. 
To be able to use it, the student should have an adequate 
knowledge of French and German, but his possession of that is 
pre-supposed and would be tested by his examination on 
leaving school. If once attention could be directed to the 
enormous importance of acquiring a general knowledge of 
History, we should soon have books of our own ; but I am 
afraid that the detestable habit of splitting up History into 
periods — detestable I mean in relation to the wants of the 
ordinary educated gentleman — will last long. The rnore's the 
pity ! for the best chance we have of building up a National 
future which shall not shame our past, is that the large 
increasing, and from the nature of things, immensely important 
class for whom I am speaking, should be thoroughly acquainted 
with all that they ought to know in their capacity of citizens. 
Democratic institutions cannot by any possibility be long worked 
with safety unless there is a large and thoroughly instructed 
class to help in their working. 

" Ex nihilo nihil Jit f " " Dix mille ignorances ne font 
pas un savoir f '' Nine-tenths of the nonsense that is talked 
and written up and down the land would never be heard of if 
an adequate knowledge of the History of the World were one 
of the ordinary accomplishments expected in an English 
gentleman. I have shown, I think, that it could be quite 
easily obtained without trespassing upon the time required for 
any other studies which should form part of general, as dis- 
tinguished from special, education ; upon the time required for 
Literature and Natural Science, amongst others. I have shown 
further, that where special aptitudes for other studies were 



22 

present, I should be far from exacting in favour of the system 
of education which seems to me ceteris paribus the best. 
Nothing could be further from my wish than that any one of 
the schools into which young men now go at Oxford or else- 
where should lose their pupils, least of all should I wish 
this to happen to the Modern History School. All I desire is 
that the peculiar needs of the body of persons whom I have 
kept in view throughout should be carefully remembered. 

It seems to me that a Society so closely connected as is 
ours, alike with the Universities and with the scholastic 
profession throughout the country, could do a great deal to 
effect this, and that is why I have ventured, at I fear too great 
length, to place my views before you and to submit the same 
to your better judgment. 



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